FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Remember the Basics

Time goes by too quickly; Christmas, New Years, winter — and now the dawn of Spring approaches; and the timeline of 12 months from the time one is separated from Federal Service can suddenly come and go; prospectively, 12 months can seem like a sufficient amount of time; retrospectively, when 10 months passes by and suddenly there are only a couple of months left to file; where has the time gone? Do not wait until the last moment; all arguments about one’s medical inability to perform the essential elements of one’s job become irrelevant if you miss the statutory deadline. To be eligible for Federal Disability retirement, you must file within one (1) year of being separated from Federal Service. All of your medical records and reports will be worth merely the paper they are written on if you fail to file within that 1-year deadline. The statutory clock begins to toll once you have been separated from Federal Service. Always keep the basics in the forefront of your mind; otherwise, if the basics are not attended to, everything else becomes a moot point.